Published on Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Long-standing ATOL-holder collapses amid pandemic

ATOL-holder Enjoy Travel has ceased trading, blaming 'the savage destruction meted out to the travel and entertainment industries' for its collapse.

The company, which was founded more than 30 years ago in 1989, organised dance and music holidays, mainly to Spain.

It operated under the names Enjoy Travel and Costa del Folk.

A message on its website said all bookings for recently cancelled or future events will be reimbursed via its ATOL bond or, for land-only bookings, via insolvency protection insurance.

The Civil Aviation Authority confirmed that the Blackburn-based family-run business was an ATOL holder when it ceased trading on May 8. "We are currently collating information from the company and will email ATOL protected consumers with details on how they may make a claim," it said.

In the message posted on enjoytravel.co.uk, the company said: "The savage destruction meted out to the travel and entertainment industries is without parallel and Enjoy Travel Limited is totally immersed in both. This means that the future of the company is now untenable and following professional advice, the decision has been taken to cease trading on Friday 8th May 2020

"As a fully licensed and bonded tour operator, anyone with a booking for a recently cancelled event or a future event will be reimbursed."

In a statement released to the Irish post, Enjoy Travel founder Gerry Flynn, who came to the UK from Mayo in Ireland and counted thousands of Irish amongst his customers, said: "Enjoy Travel has been working tirelessly over the last six weeks to try to secure the return of funds held by overseas suppliers, in order to refund you our valued customers.

"The timing of Covid-19 could not have been worse with over 1200 people due to travel to a number of our overseas events between April and June, all of which have now been cancelled.

"In addition, we already have approximately 1000 customers booked to travel on future events in the autumn all of which now seem to be in jeopardy."

He said that many of his customers had offered to rebook for a future date but, with no clear indication of when holidays could resume he said that that 'as a responsible tour operator' he felt he should make sure clients received refunds.

"You are entitled to your money back and we are aware that many of you are in desperate need of that refund," he added.

The statement on the company's website gives further advice to customers claiming refunds.